changing the world through storytelling

Writer

I have written for the Daily Beast, USA Today, Real Clear Politics, The American Conservative, the Georgia Political Review, and others.

Producer

CNN, Forgotten Plague

Entrepreneur

I have founded two non-profits, the Georgia Political Review and the Blue Ribbon Foundation. I serve on the Board of Directors for Blue Ribbon and for #MEAction Network.

Speaker

I have spoken at the National Press Club, Stanford Medical School, the Chinese Theater, and others.

About

"Poets are the great unacknowledged legislators of the world." --Percy Shelley

I always wanted to be a writer. But making change is about being a whole lot more.

In ninth grade, I was facing the confusion of growing up, where I walked into a English classroom. In the pages of literature, I found a transcendence and a sense of self. At each trial in my life I learned to find refuge in the written word, and I hoped to spend my life writing.

Social Media

Journalism

Marketing

Web Design

MY CREW

Nicole Castillo

Director, Cinematographer, Producer

Giridhar Subramanian

Producer, Business Development

Liz Jernigan

Advertising/PR Account Executive

Travis Preston

Director, Producer

David Conley

Composer

Henna Bakshi

Writer, Producer, Foodie

Andy Leverett

Editor, Cinematographer, Photographer

Testimonials

Latest news

Below is the text of a speech I delivered on the main stage of Stanford Medicine X on September 16, 2017. Giving the speech was a highlight of 2017, and I used the occasion to talk personally about my disease and how it affects my outlook on my future: I still remember sitting across[…]

Mark Twain once wrote that history doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes. In the age of Donald Trump, that rhyme is abundantly apparent in Robert Penn Warren’s All the King Men, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1947, and was adapted into films in both 1949 and 2006. A decade after the latest film adaptation[…]

The following is a statement to be read at the Forgotten Plague screening held at the International Association of CFS/ME Conference in Fort Lauderdale, FL at 6:30pm on Thursday, October 27th, 2016. Thank you all for attending this special screening of Forgotten Plague at IACFSME. Most people like to receive presents on their birthday, but[…]

“The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves.” -William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar In our scientific age, genomics could be our form of modern prophecy, offering the same hope that seers of millennia past professed to give. Rather than looking into tea leaves or into the constellations, we can now use[…]

When my co-director Nicole Castillo and I announced we were making Forgotten Plague in summer 2013 with a Kickstarter project and a USA Today article, we were instantly bombarded by messages. Many people gave money, and others gave us things even more valuable: advice, connections, ideas, and perspective. Yet many gave us something even more[…]

I’m currently halfway through Cory Booker’s book United and there are a couple really key points that resonate with me that I didn’t expect to. Obviously he is known for being the Stanford football player, Rhodes Scholar, and Newark mayor who saved women from burning buildings, shoveled his neighbors’ snow, won a $100 million grant from[…]

I’m currently halfway through Cory Booker’s book United and there are a couple really key points that resonate with me that I didn’t expect to. Obviously he is known for being the Stanford football player, Rhodes Scholar, and Newark mayor who saved women from burning buildings, shoveled his neighbors’ snow, won a $100 million grant from[…]

On May 25th I’ll be attending the #MillionsMissing protest in front of the HHS Building on Capitol Hill. Along with me will be Stephanie Land and Travis Preston, board members from my non-profit, the Blue Ribbon Foundation. We’ll join at least 35 others from #ME Action Network and other major national organizations on the street[…]

Since I started high school, I’ve always wanted to be a writer. But after I graduated from the University of Georgia, I began to realize that making change is about being a lot more. The journey was tough. I had studied English literature, international affairs, film, history, philosophy, and psychology. Like any liberal arts major,[…]

October 2, 2012 For USA TODAY College Researchers published a study two weeks ago discrediting the link between the retrovirus XMRV and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS), a little-known illness that the FDA says is as devastating as cancer, heart disease and epilepsy. The study marked an end to a three-year saga in which much of[…]

September 19, 2012 For USA TODAY College A year ago Saturday, Gautam Narula received a letter from a dead man. After a political science class, Narula, then a freshman at the University of Georgia, returned to his dorm, Myers Hall, and checked his mail. He found a plain white envelope addressed to him in broad[…]

During the fall of 2011 I wrote on the possibilities of Muslim democracy following the Arab Spring for The Citizen, UGA’s journal of political science and international affairs (usually only for faculty, but I was fortunate enough to be asked to write a piece). I go back and take a look with each turn in[…]